Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Janet Crane peeked out the sidelight, her face switching from annoyed to overjoyed in the blink of an eye. Welcome to the borderline personality disorder, Vince thought.

“Mr. Leone!” she said, opening the door. She was a little confused, an emotion that didn’t sit well with her. How did he know where she lived? Why would he come by at such a late hour? “What a surprise!”

Vince smiled the big smile. “Mrs. Crane, sorry to bother you so late, but we have some questions for you.”

“We?”

He stepped to the side enough that she could see Mendez behind him. Now she smelled a rat, and the nice smile hardened.

“Detective.” Her gaze darted back and forth between them. “What’s this about?”

“Well, I have a small confession to make,” Vince began amiably. “It would probably be better if we came inside and sat down for this. You don’t want your neighbors looking out and seeing a couple of guys on your doorstep at eleven o’clock at night.”

She hesitated just enough to let him move toward her, then automatically stepped back, and he easily stepped into the foyer. Mendez stepped in behind him.

She had changed out of her red power suit into a pink jogging suit, but the makeup was still in place and the black hair was still starched stiff.

“I’m a little confused, Mr. Leone. Why would you feel the need to bring a detective with you to my home?”

Vince played contrite, ducking his head. “That’s where the confession comes in. I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely forthcoming with you earlier today.”

She was working up to disliking him now. She wouldn’t take kindly to being played.

“I’m not really just visiting,” he admitted. “I’m here on business.”

He pulled out his ID and held it up for her to see. She peered at it, her face frozen carefully blank.

“I’m with the FBI,” he said. “I’m here helping out with the investigation. ”

“What could you possibly want with me?” she asked, crossing her arms tightly against herself.

“We just have a few questions,” he assured her.

“About what?”

“Is your husband home, ma’am?” Mendez asked.

“Not at the moment. Why?”

“Do you know where he is by any chance? We have a couple of questions for him as well.”

“He’s playing cards. Friday is his night to play cards.”

Lie, Vince decided from her body language and the way she repeated the statement as if to confirm that it sounded good.

“Who does he play cards with?” Mendez asked, pen poised over his notebook.

“Friends. Men he plays golf with. I don’t know them.”

Vince arched a brow. “You don’t know your husband’s friends?”

“Not all of them,” she said defensively. “I don’t play cards, and I certainly don’t have the time to play golf. Those are Peter’s hobbies and Peter’s friends.”

“You must have met them, at least,” he said. “Don’t they ever come here to play cards? You don’t stick around to serve them snacks?”

She was getting her back up now. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I’m not a barmaid or a waitress. I make a point of not being here when Peter entertains his male friends.”

Mendez bobbed his eyebrows and hummed a little while he made notes.

“So you must have hobbies of your own,” Vince said. “That’s very healthy, I think. Couples don’t have to do everything together.”

“I serve on a number of committees and boards here in town,” she said. “I don’t have time for hobbies.”

Vince frowned. “All work and no play-”

“I don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions,” she said abruptly. Her tone of voice was changing, the cadence of her speech becoming more clipped, curt. “I heard you have a suspect in custody.”

“We’re really not at liberty to discuss the case, Mrs. Crane,” Vince said.

“I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Where was your husband on the night of Thursday, the third of October?” he asked.

“He was here. He and our son like to watch a television program together Thursday nights.”

“Yes, Cosby . We know,” Vince said. “Your son mentioned that to his teacher, Miss Navarre.”

“She had no business asking Tommy those questions,” she said, her temper rising another notch. “He’s terribly upset.”

“Why is that, Mrs. Crane?” Vince asked. “It seems an innocent question to me. Why would your son think it was anything else? I wasn’t there, but I feel safe in assuming Miss Navarre didn’t ask Tommy if his father is a serial killer.”

“He found out that was the night that girl went missing. He’s a bright boy.”

“I guess so,” Vince said. “I should start recruiting him for the Bureau now, because that’s quite a leap in a ten-year-old’s logic system. How did he know anything at all about the disappearance of Karly Vickers?”

“He saw it in the newspaper.”

“Your fifth grader sits down and reads the newspaper in the evening?”

“His father was reading it.”

“Does your husband have an unusual interest in following these cases?”

“No more than anyone else in town.”

“Has he been keeping the articles?”

“Why would he do that?”

“He was the last person to see Miss Vickers that day,” Mendez said. “You’re aware of that, Mrs. Crane?”

“Yes. That doesn’t make him guilty of anything.”

“And you don’t remember if he was home that evening?”

She glared at him. “I told you he was.”

“But you don’t remember if he went out of the house later that evening.”

“No. I’m sure he didn’t,” she said. “Peter doesn’t go out that much.”

“Except to golf and play cards with people you don’t know in places you have no idea about,” Vince said, his own tone of voice becoming harder, colder. “Now that seems odd to me, Mrs. Crane, because you strike me as the kind of woman who would keep a short leash on a man.”

The whites of her eyes showed all around the iris. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re controlling,” he said without rancor. “You want to be in charge. I’ll bet if I go into your kitchen or laundry room you’ll have a big whiteboard calendar and everything on it will be color-coded. Am I right?”

She was getting angrier by the second now. “There’s nothing wrong with being organized.”

“Not at all. Controlling, however, is a different thing,” he said. “Controlling is getting pissed off at people who don’t toe your line, people who don’t follow your script, people who ask questions you don’t want to answer.”

He let the last shred of the Mr. Nice Guy act fall away. “That’s the flip of the switch that sets you off and makes you think you can scream at people and threaten them, and be a Class A bitch to anyone who crosses you.”

Her jaw dropped, astonished anyone would speak to her that way. “I beg your pardon?” she said again.

“You don’t want my pardon,” Vince scoffed. “You want to kick me in the balls right now, don’t you? Because I won’t do what you want, and I won’t believe what you want me to believe just because that’s your agenda.

“I’m bigger than you, and meaner than you, and I’m not going to take your bullshit,” he said. “I’m not some little fifth-grade teacher you can push around and try to intimidate.”

Janet Crane’s face was nearly purple, her eyes popping. Vince expected her hair to stand straight up. She pointed to the door.

“Get out! Get out of my house!”

Vince laughed at her. “Or what? You’ll call a cop?” He hooked a thumb at Mendez. “I brought a cop with me. Where’s your witness? Who’s going to testify on your behalf? The child you drugged to make him sleep so he won’t bother you?”